Most couples plan a romantic date out the first time they hire a non-family babysitter, but my husband and I opted to visit Wegmans to shop for pizza ingredients. We sampled a couple of organic cheeses and landed on an aged cheddar cheese from Sonoma Creamery in California. When you purchase such a rich cheese you don’t want to take away its intensity by adding too many toppings so the combination of white pizza sauce, broccoli, and a dash of red pepper flakes was the perfect combination. After pre-baking the dough, the cheese melted nicely at 450 degrees for 8 minutes.

Apple, bacon, and cheddar are becoming one of my most favorite pizza combinations. What’s interesting to me is that this pizza turns out different each time I make it. Check out this post from November 2011 and another from October 2012. Two different strategies make this version stand out from the others. First, my friend Sara showed me how to slice the onions super thin, making caramelizing easier. Second, rather than putting the toppings on one topping at a time we added them more randomly. This made for nice flavor distribution and nice presentation. This apple, bacon, and cheddar recipe is sweet and savory, and so delicious!

It’s been almost two years since I made a four cheese pizza, and one year since I’ve eaten real dairy cheese. What a simple pizza recipe! The cheese combination was strong but tasty and went well with my homemade pizza sauce. I was so excited to eat my first real cheese pizza after a year without, that I only let the dough rise for 30 minutes when it really needs at least an hour. When it baked the crust didn’t get as fluffy as it usually does. Despite the slightly dry, flat crust it was a good pizza.

Not everyone has access to a wood-burning oven, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make thin, crispy pizza at home. Listed below are some of the most frequent questions I receive about making homemade pizza:

How do I use a pizza stone?

Should I preheat my pizza stone?

Should I pre-bake pizza crust?

What is the best temperature to bake pizza?

How long should I bake my pizza?

This post addresses each of these questions and a few more.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees with the pizza stone inside. The hotter the temperature the crispier the crust – adjust the temperature according to your preferences.

Form the dough. On a floured surface gently press the dough down starting in the middle and work it into a flat circle. Once a circle begins to form use a rolling pin to roll the dough very thin. Check every couple of rolls to make sure the dough is not sticking to the surface or the rolling pin.

Remove the warm pizza stone from your preheated oven.

Lightly dust the pizza stone with cornmeal to prevent the dough from sticking to the stone.

Pick up the dough and gently lay it onto the pizza stone.

Pre-bake the dough for four minutes.

Remove the stone and assemble your favorite toppings on the crust.

Place the stone back in the oven and bake the pizza for 5 to 10 minutes. Baking times will vary based on your oven and topping selections.

Remove the pizza stone from the oven and place on your pizza stone rack.

Use a pizza peel to remove the pizza from the stone.

The 150 plus pizzas I’ve written about on this site were baked in an electric oven, and only five or so have been baked in a gas oven. I will post about the differences once I do a few more pizzas in my gas oven. Please share your experiences or post any questions in the comment section below.

Notes: I would never have imagined making a dairy-free pizza a year ago, but since I found out my daughter has a dairy allergy I’ve adopted a completely dairy-free diet. My pizza dough doesn’t contain dairy, but if you’ve being reading my blog for long you know I love cheese. Recently, I’ve started to experiment with dairy-free cheese. Non-dairy cheese will never compare to a fresh block of soft-ripened cheese, but I’ve come to appreciate the subtle flavors in vegan cheese. However, what made this pizza special was the roasted acorn squash. Combined with chicken and apple sausage, my dairy-free autumn pizza tasted like fall.

If you’ve had a good experience with a dairy-free cheese, please let me know because I am open to suggestions.